Hand operated tapers have been available for many years as shown, for example, in U.S. Pat. No. 5,641,377 issued Jun. 24, 1997 inventor Chung and U.S. Pat. No. 6,799,623 issued Oct. 5, 2005 inventor Cheng. Generally all necessarily leave a relatively long free leading end portion that must be applied to the next object to be taped which impedes the taping operation. Normally these conventional hand operated tapers or so call tape dispensers require the operator to pull the free leading end portion with his fingers and then attach it onto the object to initiate the taping process. A cutting knife is also required since the tape is supplied as a continuous ribbon from a supply source that is normally a roll of such tape. The knife is usually positioned away from the tape path and the object to avoid accidental tape cut off or damaging the object during the taping process. Safety guard for the knife is also provided to prevent operator injuries. Above U.S. Pat. No. 5,641,377 discloses a knife retracts from its normal cutting position for safety purpose. U.S. Pat. No. 7,669,631 issued Mar. 2, 2010, inventor Bailey related limiting snap back of the free leading end of the tape.
In some manually activated tape dispensing devices the cutting operation is manually initiated by some form of triggering operation which presents the tape to the cutting blade to thereby sever the tape see U.S. Pat. No. 4,762,586 issued Aug. 9, 1988 to Wilkie; U.S. Pat. No. 4,345,966 issued Aug. 24, 1982 to Iiyoma et al.; U.S. Pat. No. 4,253,905 issued Mar. 3, 1981 to Regan; and U.S. Pat. No. 3,813,275 issued May 28, 1974 o Weick et al. The patents to Iiyoma et al and Weick et al together with U.S. Pat. No. 4,238,271 issued Dec. 9, 1980 to Urushizaki; U.S. Pat. No. 3,523,053 issued Aug. 4, 1970 to Zbinden et al; and U.S. Pat. No. 2,582,979 issued Jan. 22, 1952 to Fritzinger provide some form of withdraw system to move the free end of the tape away from the point of application, in most cases by physically moving the tape roll etc. In Weick et al a slide is manually released to change the orientation of the tape and over the applicator roll toward the tape roll from which the tape is being dispensed.
These device disclosed in the referenced patents rely solely on manual dexterity of the operator to move the device in the desired direction during the taping operation and/or in many cases to trigger tape cut-off to complete the operation.